In the past 20 years, the concept of material flow accounting and analysis (MFA) has developed into one of the most successful and influential approaches within the area of environmental accounting on the national and international level. A large number of economy-wide material flow studies have been published for industrialized, transition and developing countries and for coalitions of states (e.g. EU) by various authors from institutions around the world.
The scientific community as well as policy makers increasingly demand analyses that go beyond the presentation of MFA data and indicators (see section on MFA applications above). Thus, the basic intention of this online portal is to provide easy access to MFA data to be applied in further policy-oriented analyses.